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Pitch The Tide – Runbin Dong: Founder, CEO of Scale Social

In This Episode

Interview Takeaways

  • Authenticity Outperforms Ads – Customers trust real people more than polished campaigns or paid influencers. User-generated content created in the moment consistently drives higher engagement, stronger recall, and better performance than traditional marketing.
  • Turn Guests Into Growth Engines – Scale happens when everyday customers become active participants in telling a brand’s story. By lowering friction and rewarding participation instantly, operators can transform casual diners into repeat advocates without asking them to be creators.
  • Brand Safety Meets Local Voice – National brands need consistency, but growth depends on local relevance. Platforms like Scale Social bridge that gap by capturing authentic, location-specific content while maintaining control, quality, and measurable ROI at scale.

In this Pitch The Tide session, Runbin Dong, CEO and founder of Scale Social, shares how his family’s restaurant roots led him to rethink modern restaurant marketing. Drawing from firsthand operator experience, Runbin explains why authentic customer content consistently outperforms polished ads and influencer campaigns. He introduces Scale Social’s QR-driven platform, which turns everyday guests into brand advocates by capturing real moments in-store, rewarding participation instantly, and amplifying the best content across paid and organic channels. At its core, the platform helps brands close the authenticity gap, drive measurable traffic, and scale genuine customer storytelling without adding operational complexity.

Listen to the replay of this first session and follow Cali BBQ Media to join future rooms, pitch your company, and learn from the community.

Every Friday at 10am PT / 1pm ET, Shawn P. Walchef hosts Pitch the Tide live.

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About Cali BBQ Media

Digital Hospitality is an interview-based video podcast hosted by business owner Shawn P. Walchef (@shawnpwalchef) and produced by his Cali BBQ Media company. The weekly digital series explores the ways successful businesses and entrepreneurs have merged old and new with innovative digital strategies that harness the power of the Internet and social media. Shawn is the founder of Cali BBQ Media and creator of the Restaurant Influencers podcast on Entrepreneur Media.

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